Thursday, May 23, 2013

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The importance of picking good terminology the first time

May 22, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Writing  

In an early paper that I lead authored, I used the term cold surge to describe the cold front associated with the Superstorm of March 1993. Schultz, D. M., W. E. Bracken, L. F. Bosart, G. J. Hakim, M. A. Bedrick, M. J. Dickinson, and K. R. Tyle, 1997: The 1993 Superstorm cold surge: Frontal … read more

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The size of figures submitted for peer review

May 22, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Writing  

A common concern when reviewing a manuscript is, “Are the figures going to be legible when published in the journal?” Notice how small and unreadable the figure is above. You can click on it to see it in full size.) As you may know, the digital files for the figures are uploaded to the publishers’ … read more

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Government Guidelines for Concise and Clear Writing

April 27, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Writing  

Brian Curran sends me this article in Government Executive called “8 Tips to Improve Your (And Your Agency’s) Writing”. This guidance comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, who recently developed a Writing Style Guide. You can download this 114-page PDF here. After those 8 tips, the author provides this Pop Quiz. Pop Quiz: Which … read more

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The Importance of Not Being Cited

April 26, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Writing  

This title comes from a 1973 paper in Current Contents by Eugene Garfield called “Uncitedness III—The Importance of Not Being Cited”. In there, Garfield talks about three reasons why papers may not be cited. I. “the uncitedness of the mediocre, the unintelligible, the irrelevant, the eccentric.” II. “the uncitedness of the meritorious but undiscovered or … read more

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How to determine authorship order quantitatively

April 19, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Resources, Writing  

Feuding coauthors on your paper? Petty arguments about who did more work? Colleagues whining because you didn’t include them in the author list of your latest Nature paper? I recently discovered the following paper, which reminded me of several articles that produce a quantitative approach to determining author order. Authorship of scientific articles within an … read more

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A note on good research practice: Dooley (2013)

April 8, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Publishing, Reviewing, Writing  

An editorial in the International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control is entitled “A note on good research practice.” Dooley states: By far the most common issue we editors of this journal are seeing in terms of poor scientific practice in submissions is the failure to appropriately cite the work of others. Sadly, we see numerous … read more

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A subjective discussion of the meanings of “subjective” and “objective”

April 8, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Writing  

Scientists are objective. Personal bias is not acceptable and interpretation that is subject to the observer is frowned upon. The above statement is the ideal to which we presumably strive to attain as scientists. The reality that we construct in our research is independent of the person doing the research. So, when someone performs some … read more

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An example of why hyphens are necessary

March 14, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Writing  

The following is an excerpt from an email sent to staff at the University of Manchester. As part of the University’s commitment to creating change in gender equality across the University we are running a half day unconscious bias training session focussed on recruitment and promotion. The following is how it should have been punctuated … read more

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Reviewer wants “media-friendly schematic”

March 9, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Reviewing, Writing  

This comment appeared in a review of a paper for which I am serving as Editor. “I suggest creating a media-friendly schematic showing the basic conclusions of how ….” Given all the recent publicity about …, I believe this paper will attract media interest, and a schematic like this will be useful for explaining the … read more

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An example of an excellent figure

March 1, 2013   Filed under Blog, Featured, Writing  

I had been showing this figure to several students recently about an effective way to plot a lot of spatial data without the figure looking cluttered. I think this is one excellent way to do it. The plots are all ordered around the perimeter of the map, yet the points take you to the locations … read more

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